The Foundling Boy

Начало книги

Jeanne could not find a way through the hawthorn hedge. The stiff branches slashed at her face and arms. She ran along the path in the hope of finding an opening, but the hostile, aggressive hedge was impenetrable. Clasping her large barren bosom with both hands to stop it bouncing, she felt her heart’s panic-stricken thumping as a sharp pain under her left palm. But she could not give up. Behind the hedge, in the young birch forest, a child was wailing, and its fitful cries, carried on the evening air, were calling for her help. She badly wanted to rescue the baby lost in the wood, but her heavy legs felt glued to the earth and her lungs were failing her. She gasped for breath. If she did not hurry up, the child would die and Albert would never forgive her. What made her panic most was that, although she must have run the best part of a kilometre to try to find a way through, the cries were as close as ever, as if the baby was following her behind the hawthorns. Then she realised that the path must go in a circle around the wood, whose dappled foliage was rustling in the fading light. The wailing broke off, and Jeanne stopped, paralysed by fear, with such a lump in her throat that when she tried to call out, only a croak passed her lips.

Читать дальше →